Today, Monday, the Egyptian Football Association received a letter from the English club Liverpool, apologizing for the failure of its player, Mohamed Salah, to join the ranks of the national team in its next camp.
Salah’s inability to join the national team comes before preparing to face Angola in Cairo and Gabon in Franceville during the first and second rounds of the African continent’s qualifiers for the World Cup, according to the Egyptian Football Association.
The statement of the Egyptian Federation indicated that Liverpool’s speech stated that Salah’s inability to join the national team was due to the precautionary measures applied in England to confront the outbreak of the Corona virus in the world, which puts returnees from some countries in compulsory health isolation for a period of ten days upon their return to England.
In his letter, the English club expressed its hope that the Egyptian Federation would understand that it was forced to do so, in the face of the player being subjected to a quarantine for this period and being affected by this physically, as well as the uncertainty of the conditions of the place of the stone determined by the English authorities, and Liverpool FC took the same position with a number of of his foreign players.
For its part, the Egyptian Federation continues its continuous contacts with the International Football Association “FIFA” regarding facilitating the task of international players joining their national teams to participate in the World Cup qualifiers, which requires exemption from travel restrictions imposed on them in the countries in which they play due to the Corona pandemic so that they can join to their national teams.
It is noteworthy that the English club Liverpool had officially refused to represent its Egyptian international player, Mohamed Salah, his country in the Tokyo Olympics.
And the coach of the Egyptian national football team, Shawky Gharib, said that Egypt had repeatedly tried to persuade Liverpool to allow Mohamed Salah to play in the Summer Olympics, but the Reds “completely refused” the participation of their striker, according to the “Liverpool Echo” website, which is close to the management of the English club.
According to the site, Liverpool prevented Salah from participating because the tournament is not under the authority of “FIFA”, which Gharib claims is contrary to Mohamed Salah’s personal desire.
Shawky Gharib spoke for the first time about Liverpool’s decision to prevent Mohamed Salah from participating in the Tokyo Olympics, in new statements to “BBC Sport Africa”, in which he said: “I tried many times with Liverpool, as did the Egyptian Football Association, to convince them By allowing Salah to be part of the Olympic team, but they completely refused.”